Posted tagged ‘loud music’

I recognize that I’m inching towards 64. Some mornings I feel more like 84, but other mornings I’m spry and ready to go! Some days I feel slammed and other days I feel like I can slam dunk!

It seems, however, that there are more things in this world that I just don’t get. When I say “don’t get” I don’t mean things like wearing bikini underwear or Flaming Hot Cheetos. I mean I don’t understand, I don’t comprehend the reason why…that kind of “getting!”

So here’s my list for the beginning of 2018 that I just don’t get!

I just don’t get why there seems to be a boatload of personal injury attorney commercials on TV every day. If I hear the nickname “The Strong Arm” one more time I’m going to injure myself!

I just don’t get, with all the concussion concerns, why football players bump helmets with teammates after a good play, especially when the 6’7” offensive lineman bumps helmets with the 5’7” guy who just kicked a fifty yard field goal!

I just don’t get why “Bobby Lee” has to weave in and out of traffic going 80 on a six lane heavily-traveled road where the speed limit is 55! Someone explain to me what driving academy taught those NASCAR methods!

I just don’t get parents who try to justify the wickedness of their kids! When their son sets the house on fire will they justify it by saying that Junior was just barbecuing?

I just don’t get worship services where I can’t hear myself sing because the volume of the onstage singer and the band is turned up so loud! (Does that sound like an old fart or what?)

I just don’t get the football player who makes one good play and poses for the cameras like he just solved the world poverty situation!

I just don’t get why the guy sitting two chairs away from me at the public library is making calls on his cell phone asking for admissions information at different institutions. When did the library become a personal phone booth?

I just don’t get sagging pants! Nuf’ said!

I just don’t get why we don’t appreciate teachers more; and, in like manner, I don’t get teachers who lose sight of the opportunity to impact the lives of their students.

I just don’t get why there’s a Starbucks every half-mile…but I appreciate it!

I just don’t get why poker is considered a sport by ESPN.

I just don’t get why so many good three-point shooters in basketball can’t hit free throws. It’s a closer and uncontested free shot, for Pete’s sake!

I just don’t get full sleeve tattoos, and why, when it’s twenty below outside, some guy will still wear a sleeveless shirt so you can see it? Yes, I am really, really old…and “un-inked!”

I just don’t get why some parents will willingly pay $100 for a professional sporting event ticket, but then complain that their kid needs $2.25 for lunch money!

I just don’t get “The Bachelor!” I’d be much more interested in a show entitled “The Pimple-Faced Short, Introverted, High School Junior Who Tries To Get A Date To the Prom!” Winner! Of course, that would be like watching a rerun of part of my own life story!

It was a bad sign! In the Sunday announcement sheet under informational items there was that blurb that was probably intended to be a forewarning of what was about to come!

“Ear plugs are available at the Information Booth for anyone who needs them.”

It’s a bad sign when they care about your hearing! When I was pastoring we cared also, but it was for those who had diminished hearing so they borrowed a hearing device that helped amplify the sound of the speaker or music. This was the other direction. This was: “We’re going to turn up the volume so much that you’re going to be thinking you’re standing by a jet engine on steroids! So you might want to put these in your ears!”

I’m 63 and I realize I’m sneaking up on crotchety! I’m becoming like a dear saintly lady from the church I pastored in Mason, Michigan. Grace Ankney was a great lady who couldn’t hear squat! And she would let the speaker know that by yelling from her third row seat, “I can’t hear you!” I don’t remember what Grace’s spiritual gifts were, but she scored low on hospitality!

And here I was about to shout “I can’t hear myself!” But, of course, I couldn’t hear myself so I didn’t say it.

I realize the church I was attending last Sunday is designed for a younger crowd…soon to be younger deaf crowd…and there are all kinds of churches for all kinds of people. I’m a person of grace who is fairly tolerant about circumstances and situations. I remember the “worship wars” of the 1980’s when that period’s older generation fought hard against the new worship music that was settling upon the hearts of congregations. Our leadership council had several hours of discussion about it. We did planning retreats where we sought to figure out the direction we were going in worship, while being sensitive to those who liked it the way it had been…for fifty years!

I remember one young man from my church asking me if the lady who played the organ could take the parking brake off! On the other side, an older couple left for greener, hymnier, pastures because we had sung a couple of praise songs that had produced clapping, albeit Baptist clapping, which sounds kind of like the light patter of rain on the driveway.

And now I was that couple…longing for a calmer sanctuary of praise music. Just to be fair, the songs we sang last Sunday were all familiar to me. I knew the words to three of them, but since I couldn’t hear my own voice I never sang any of them. It wasn’t that I was being vain. Although people say I have a good voice I’m not infatuated by the sound of it. I just like to know that I can hear the words that I’m speaking or singing!

And now I’m starting to type kind of crotchety!

I’m a “has been” who is still being. This Sunday I’ll travel back out to the little congregation of twenty in a town forty-five minutes from where we live and give the Sunday message. We’ll sing some songs together in a sanctuary with great acoustics, and I’ll get a bag of fresh produce from a couple of farmers who bring in their excess each week. It will be totally different from my experience from last week where we had to park a few hundred yards away. This Sunday at Simla everyone can park right next to the building.

Perhaps that’s who I am now…a participant of a small congregation journeying together in a slow walk. At Simla this Sunday we won’t need ear plugs. Two sixth grade boys will take up the offering. There will be a Sunday bulletin, which we really won’t need because the order of worship is almost always the same. And after church people will grab a cup of weak coffee, a cookie, and stand around talking for a good 20 to 30 minutes.

That’s now where I feel at home, it’s where I sense the closeness of God and the struggles of his saints, and I’m okay with that!

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